The Decision Book: Fifty models for strategic thinking (2019)(medium.com)
medium.com
The Decision Book: Fifty models for strategic thinking (2019)
https://medium.com/@snehal.katare/book-summary-the-decision-book-fifty-models-for-strategic-thinking-ad866b60fa40
27 comments
In those images I see:
- complete graphs (the triangle matrices)
- incomplete graphs (the circular ones with only some segments conntected)
And those are excellent ways to visualize these types of objects.
He built knowledge graphs.
And those are excellent ways to visualize these types of objects.
He built knowledge graphs.
This reminds me of The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game
But also of this:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9752.1...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game
But also of this:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9752.1...
I am not "getting" it.
Can you point me to some blog/article/paper/etc. which explains how to read and understand these diagrams?
Can you point me to some blog/article/paper/etc. which explains how to read and understand these diagrams?
I really didn't enjoy this book. Too fluffy for me.
Better alternatives: The Model Thinker, or Algorithms to Live By!
Better alternatives: The Model Thinker, or Algorithms to Live By!
Algorithms to Live By is a good book.
But my favorite is Antifragile from Taleb.
But my favorite is Antifragile from Taleb.
Loved antifragile, but is it really comparable?
It's essentially one "model", explained over an entire book.
It's essentially one "model", explained over an entire book.
Antifragility is the main idea indeed, but I took away many more mental models from the book.
Via negativa, the lindy effect, barbell strategy, optionality, iatrogenics, the Procrustean bed...
Via negativa, the lindy effect, barbell strategy, optionality, iatrogenics, the Procrustean bed...
ATLB was a game-changer for me; highly recommended!
Agree. I felt i could have written it better myself.
50???
this man doesn't seem to be aware of decision fatigue
this man doesn't seem to be aware of decision fatigue
The book is just a catalog of different techniques (some have called it "just fluff") and is a small easy read.
I find models are great and all, but in the end to me it's just intellectual pornography, when it comes time to make choices, i don't have the mental capacity or brain bandwidth to start running through 50 different models that i once read about to try and figure out what is the best choice, that's just too exhausting.
That's quite the wrong way of looking at it.
It is just a catalog from which you pick and choose as needed; helpful to structure your thought process before making a Decision. Hence an exposure to the models is beneficial.
I personally believe in RPDM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_primed_decision) but the book gave me some other aspects to think of.
It is just a catalog from which you pick and choose as needed; helpful to structure your thought process before making a Decision. Hence an exposure to the models is beneficial.
I personally believe in RPDM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_primed_decision) but the book gave me some other aspects to think of.
FTA: The rightness of a decision will vary with time, what seems wrong today may in the future seem to have been the right decision
ah ah ah. That's the easy case. Things get into problems when what sounded right yesterday now feels completely wrong.
There are so many variables and people are not completely dumb so that usually, any decision will do. The trick is to be able to convince others that you are right (and that happens mostly in an irrational space); before and after the decision is/was taken...
ah ah ah. That's the easy case. Things get into problems when what sounded right yesterday now feels completely wrong.
There are so many variables and people are not completely dumb so that usually, any decision will do. The trick is to be able to convince others that you are right (and that happens mostly in an irrational space); before and after the decision is/was taken...
Like when I sold 2 BTC at the first peak in ~2013. Oops.
BUT that $1200 represented a 400% gain, paid my rent (which I was short for), and it took almost 5 years for bitcoin to come back to the same value. Would it have been better to wait until 2021? Yes. Was it a bad decision? Not at all.
BUT that $1200 represented a 400% gain, paid my rent (which I was short for), and it took almost 5 years for bitcoin to come back to the same value. Would it have been better to wait until 2021? Yes. Was it a bad decision? Not at all.
Was this a bad decision or a good decision?
If you didn't pay rent, how would that have influenced your future to where you're at today?
400% Gain is a lot. How often do you think that 400% gains come arround, and how would you feel if the evaluation today was -50%?
I think the major lession here was: Have a backup reserve in which you can tap into to prevent from needing to liquidate higher risk assets.
If you didn't pay rent, how would that have influenced your future to where you're at today?
400% Gain is a lot. How often do you think that 400% gains come arround, and how would you feel if the evaluation today was -50%?
I think the major lession here was: Have a backup reserve in which you can tap into to prevent from needing to liquidate higher risk assets.
I don't play poker, but it's interesting there that the right play (because sound statistically) can make you lose the game. Over time a player that makes better decisions will come out on top.
It makes me think sometimes about how the right decision can still end up exploding in your face: it was the best decision with the information at your disposal at the time.
It makes me think sometimes about how the right decision can still end up exploding in your face: it was the best decision with the information at your disposal at the time.
Oh, indeed.
Annie Duke (professional poker player) had a great book on this called "Thinking in Bets."
The main idea is that good decisions can create bad outcomes. And bad decisions can create good ones (because of luck).
So she suggests making decisions by calculating expected value like a poker player. And separating the outcome from the quality of the decision.
Annie Duke (professional poker player) had a great book on this called "Thinking in Bets."
The main idea is that good decisions can create bad outcomes. And bad decisions can create good ones (because of luck).
So she suggests making decisions by calculating expected value like a poker player. And separating the outcome from the quality of the decision.
> the right decision can still end up exploding in your face
Nassim Taleb talks about this a lot – never risk ruin.
Because yes, on average it works out in the long run, but you are not average, you have 1 playthrough. Before you can win, you have to survive.
Nassim Taleb talks about this a lot – never risk ruin.
Because yes, on average it works out in the long run, but you are not average, you have 1 playthrough. Before you can win, you have to survive.
Risk of ruin doesn't apply in poker decision-making except in the "metagame" (ie which stakes you play and how much you actually put on the table etc).
In hands themselves poker is played for "table stakes" (ie in a given hand you can only lose the chips that are in front of you at the beginning of that hand). Because of the table stakes rule, avoiding risk of ruin in poker is literally as simple as keeping some money as cash and not putting it on the table.
The thing that happens in movies where someone makes a bet their opponent can't call so they throw the deeds to their house/title to their gold mine/keys to their car into the pot literally can't happen in poker. You can only bet what you have on the table at the beginning of the hand and if you call all-in (all those chips) you get to see the hand to conclusion regardless of what the opponent bet.
In hands themselves poker is played for "table stakes" (ie in a given hand you can only lose the chips that are in front of you at the beginning of that hand). Because of the table stakes rule, avoiding risk of ruin in poker is literally as simple as keeping some money as cash and not putting it on the table.
The thing that happens in movies where someone makes a bet their opponent can't call so they throw the deeds to their house/title to their gold mine/keys to their car into the pot literally can't happen in poker. You can only bet what you have on the table at the beginning of the hand and if you call all-in (all those chips) you get to see the hand to conclusion regardless of what the opponent bet.
I really like the ideas in Annie Duke's "Thinking in Bets". The book would suggest that the rightness of a decision shouldn't vary much with the outcome (or with time).
The book suggests that we judge the quality of the decision based on how comprehensively we evaluated possibilities before we made the decision. Our habit is to re-evaluate the quality of the decision based mostly on the outcome, even if that outcome was one of the possibilities we considered. The book suggests that a good decision can't be judged by the outcome alone, as every decision is a bet with a variety of possible outcomes. (Adjusting priors for future decisions is related to this, and one should strive to allow adjusting priors in a disciplined way while not beating oneself up or congratulating oneself too much based on outcomes which were not certain going into the decision.)
You can luck into winning the lottery, and luck into really bad outcomes while investing into index funds, but that does not make playing the lottery a good decision. In fact two decisions that lead to the same outcomes should be respected differently, depending on how much work went into them and the quality of the decision-making framework(s) applied.
The book suggests that we judge the quality of the decision based on how comprehensively we evaluated possibilities before we made the decision. Our habit is to re-evaluate the quality of the decision based mostly on the outcome, even if that outcome was one of the possibilities we considered. The book suggests that a good decision can't be judged by the outcome alone, as every decision is a bet with a variety of possible outcomes. (Adjusting priors for future decisions is related to this, and one should strive to allow adjusting priors in a disciplined way while not beating oneself up or congratulating oneself too much based on outcomes which were not certain going into the decision.)
You can luck into winning the lottery, and luck into really bad outcomes while investing into index funds, but that does not make playing the lottery a good decision. In fact two decisions that lead to the same outcomes should be respected differently, depending on how much work went into them and the quality of the decision-making framework(s) applied.
What’s your favorite here?
Keeping knowledge behind a paywall is a crime against humanity. Here's a link to a free PDF of the book OP linked: https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781846683954
> Catalan polymath, Ramon Llull was the first person to conceive a device able to externalise the human mind. In his seminal opus, the Ars Magna, Llull conceived a series of figures that could replicate the mental ability to connect information in order to acquire knowledge. Thanks to these studies, he is considered a precursor of artificial intelligence research.
> The Llullian figures, a series of instruments that organise and place concepts into relationships, exploit the ability of geometry to produce interconnections on two-dimensional, paper surfaces. They employ lines, concentric shapes, ladders and frames bearing a visual quality similar to that of architectural plans ... it revealed an intrinsic potential to work as a “logic machine”, an instrument producing knowledge in different fields through multiple combinations of ideas. Llull constructed the very first demonstration that showed that human way of thinking could be imitated by a device.